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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24104878">Red, a world about to dawn</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellamy/pseuds/bellamy'>bellamy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Les Misérables - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Grantaire, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Whump</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:20:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,141</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24104878</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellamy/pseuds/bellamy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He wasn’t normally one for guilt—make amends and move on, adjust behavior for the future. But he thought of Grantaire’s face, deeply bruised and bloodied, and knew it was his fault.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>108</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Red, a world about to dawn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>be advised: neo-n*zi content. not anything particularly graphic, but they're the bad guys. and they're in there.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Fuck.” Grantaire sighed, painting over the sketch lines on the canvas for the third time that day. It was his luck that he could only paint the one subject, and that the subject was impossible to capture. His actual assignments sat drafted in his sketchbook, though he supposed it wasn’t their fault that there was a Les Amis meeting tonight, and therefore a Sighting imminent.</p>
<p>He rolled his eyes at himself and sat on the couch in a huff. A small cloud of dust puffed up in response, but he’d long since stopped sneezing at the dust that collected in the attic room of the Musain, constantly regenerating from the flaking plaster above his head. Half-studio and half-squatter’s home, he had a tenuous agreement with the owner so long as he helped with Christmas and birthday gifts in the form of portraits, and it was a damn sight better than being confined full-time to his wretched apartment, filled with maniacal roommates.</p>
<p>Still, he mused. He could do to beg a borrowed vacuum off someone. And—he caught sight of his paint-stained clothes—he should probably consider storing a change of clothes around. He thudded his heels on the floor idly, restless and wound-up and considering the bottle of wine he had behind the canvases. A moment later, he froze.</p>
<p>The door to the staircase downstairs creaked open, and Grantaire heard a steady set of footsteps ascend toward his den of art and dust.</p>
<p>It’s not that his occupancy here was a secret, but not many of the Amis knew. It tended to elicit pity, or a brainstorming session. And he wasn’t interested in being the center of a cause, no matter how insane his landlord was.</p>
<p>So when Enjolras emerged, looking extremely surprised, Grantaire had no response whatsoever. He sat silent, suddenly very conscious of the paint that was certainly on his face and the plaster flakes that would have settled in his dust-catching curls.</p>
<p>“What are you doing?” Enjolras said, after a long moment.</p>
<p>“Painting,” Grantaire blurted. He was off his game when he was surprised. He should never be surprised.</p>
<p>“Really?” Enjolras said, not sounding nearly as disdainful as Grantaire had expected. He moved across the room in long strides, and suddenly he was in his space, standing far too close in the all-too-small attic. He was squinting at the paintings that Grantaire had finished, the ones that had been satisfactory enough to not hide behind sheets or white paint—and Grantaire was suddenly, painfully glad that he’d painted over the last sketch he’d produced.</p>
<p>Enjolras moved quickly again, shifting aside the sheet that’d been bunched beside the window and letting in a burst of golden orange sunlight, the last of the day’s light. It transformed the space immediately, but Enjolras had apparently only been interested in studying the paintings more closely.</p>
<p>Grantaire shifted awkwardly on the couch, not enough room for him to stand. This was awful. He couldn’t even see Enjolras’s face as he looked at each one in turn, and he wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse.</p>
<p>Finally, finally, Enjolras turned around. He still didn’t look disdainful, so Grantaire kept his easy smile up with little difficulty.</p>
<p>“These are good,” he said plainly, and though Grantaire couldn’t have given a response to anything in the world at that moment, all he had to do was listen further. “Combeferre and I had been discussing producing posters with art, even stickers or banners. Courfeyrac says visuals are key to making a message impactful. Would you be interested in lending a hand?”</p>
<p>Grantaire blinked. “Yes,” he said, belatedly. “I could do that. What sort of visuals?”</p>
<p>“A few of these would work,” Enjolras said, turning around again. He pointed at a painting Grantaire had done of a rally, and another of a warmly lit meeting, the kind they held weekly downstairs. “But Combeferre would have more specific ideas.”</p>
<p>“I’m good to talk to him,” Grantaire said. He was very proud that he was becoming less surprised by the moment.</p>
<p>“Good,” Enjolras said, nodding at him. For just a moment, he looked awkward, standing in Grantaire’s space with nothing else to say. Then he recovered himself with all ease, a skill Grantaire coveted. “The meeting will start soon, we should head down.”</p>
<p>Grantaire waited until Enjolras was safely away, nearly at the stairs, before he stood and followed. When he reached the café proper, he headed straight to the bar and procured a drink. He needed it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>--</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Enjolras scowled down at his papers, waiting for the rest of the Amis to arrive. He didn’t know why Grantaire, sitting amid friends at the longest table, insisted on treating the meetings like a party, drinking and getting the others to do the same, coaxing whoever he could wrangle into a crude game or a song. He didn’t know why he came at all, when he could just meet most everyone at the café the next night, or the one after that, for all the inane carousing he desired, uninterrupted by political speeches that he would only scoff at.</p>
<p>That was unfair. To a degree. Grantaire had agreed to the poster idea, which was more than he was expecting. And last meeting, he’d stuck to making good points instead of kicking dirt on the entire movement. Enjolras just wasn’t sure he understood what made Grantaire tick one way or the other, and he hated not understanding. He did his best to refocus, once again, on the papers that he did understand.</p>
<p>Once Joly and Musichetta finally arrived, he wasted no time in rising and calling them to order—this meeting could have no time for nonsense. The joint protest was tomorrow, an event they’d been planning for months. Maybe the others sensed his mood, or felt the same sense of gravity, because there were no interruptions to share another of Marius’s love stories, or to poke fun at another of Bossuet’s tragedies. As he went through the key messages once again, the media strategies, the protest route, the coordinating groups, the room was fully engaged, posing questions and suggestions until the plan was as fleshed out as it could be.</p>
<p>It was in the final stages of the meeting, where the more riled-up of their party began extolling the virtues of the movement, when he caught sight of Grantaire. He’d been conspicuously silent throughout the discussion, but it was clear enough now what he was thinking, looking over at a fired-up Jehan with a mix of pity and cynicism.</p>
<p>“What is it about this that’s earned your scorn?” he called, cutting across Jehan. Grantaire jolted, the eyes of the room flicking from him to Enjolras.</p>
<p>He set down his bottle carefully before meeting Enjolras’s gaze. “This won’t achieve what you think it will.”</p>
<p>“Why’s that,” Enjolras said, voice hard.</p>
<p>“The timing’s not right,” he said, leaning forward to press his forearms against the table. He still had paint over his eyebrow and dust in his hair. “The only way to change laws and policies is to pull a politician or twelve over to your side, but it’s nearly election season. No one with the greed to be in politics in the first place is going to be willing to be seen conceding even an inch to this leftist movement.”</p>
<p>“Before election season is exactly the time to do this,” Enjolras said. “It energizes the voting base to elect left-leaning candidates, and incentivizes current centrists to be seen as less rigid. It’s a statement of intent—this protest isn’t meant to change the laws, it’s meant to make it clear that the laws will inevitably change, and resistance won’t get you reelected.”</p>
<p>“And now you’ve got that phrasing we’re looking for,” Grantaire said, tapping his nose. “’Don’t resist our all-powerful movement.’ It’s that sort of talk that gets people violent, fast.”</p>
<p>“We have peacekeeping measures in place, every participating group has agreed—“</p>
<p>“Not the leftists and the hippies and the gays,” Grantaire interrupted, waving his hand dismissively. “I’m saying the neo-Nazi fucks, and the cops that are soft on them.”</p>
<p>“We know they’ll be there,” Enjolras said. “They filed a protest permit just after we did. We have measures in place there, too.” It was like he hadn’t been listening at all. Enjolras set his jaw. “We can’t back down from this.”</p>
<p>Grantaire shook his head, looking away. “Terrible idea,” he muttered.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“This whole protest is fucked up,” he said, looking back. “It’s got a higher-than-likely chance it’ll blow up bad, and either way, it won’t do anything!”</p>
<p>“You’d prefer that, wouldn’t you? Let’s just not do anything!”</p>
<p>“Better than throwing away a life on pointless political bullshit. I, for one,” he said, standing and throwing his bag over his shoulder, “prefer to enjoy myself, live a little. Try it.”</p>
<p>He was gone in a moment.</p>
<p>“Fuck off,” Enjolras said, half to himself and half to the swinging door Grantaire had left through.</p>
<p>The meeting dissolved into smaller conversations after that, as it so often did following one of their arguments. Enjolras went back to his table at the front of the room and pulled open his laptop, rechecking the route another time.</p>
<p>He didn’t think of much else besides logistics for the rest of the night into morning, hardly sleeping as he and Combeferre debated minuscule points until nearly dawn, only occasionally interrupted by Courfeyrac’s snores.</p>
<p>Midmorning saw him just past the main plaza, where the march would amass at its largest point. The platform nearby was already being used for speeches, a round-robin assortment of stories and causes of all kinds, all rooted in the law’s failures.</p>
<p>Enjolras was here to monitor the stage and handle the press, alongside Combeferre, Jehan, and Bossuet. The others were scattered throughout other points along the march route, ready to keep people on track, resolve disputes, or keep an eye on the myriad groups that had joined them for this.</p>
<p>He’d already spoken once at the platform, and would do so again when the crowd swelled. In the meantime, he obsessively checked his phone for updates from the others and for rumors on Twitter. He was buzzing, head running through talking points and eyes shifting restlessly among those gathered.</p>
<p>He spotted Grantaire almost as soon as he turned the corner towards the plaza, so attuned was he to his surroundings. He was surprised—he’d heard from more than one of the others that Grantaire had gotten spectacularly drunk the night before, texting them all an assorted mess of jumbled words and emotions. Enjolras was explicitly excluded from that particular display of trust, so he was even more surprised to see Grantaire heading right for him, not even looking particularly angry.</p>
<p>Not that Grantaire ever looked angry, not for longer than it took an argument to end. It was one of the things that confused Enjolras most about him—he seemed to hold onto emotions loosely, letting them dissolve into the laissez-faire attitude he sported nearly all the time. And if all he was was careless, then Enjolras had no idea where to start with him. Grantaire was taking up more of his thoughts again, and he scowled.</p>
<p>“How goes the day?” Grantaire said, reaching their group almost suddenly and interrupting Enjolras’s musings.</p>
<p>“Strong!” Jehan crowed. “Who knew turnout could be this good on the hottest day of the year so far?”</p>
<p>“It’s the summer vibes,” Bossuet put in. “Gets people in the mood for liberation.”</p>
<p>Grantaire snorted. “Well a party’s a party, no matter how political. Someone just needs to set up a cocktail bar.”</p>
<p>Combeferre looked disconcertingly like he was considering it—probably something about small businesses and extending the life of the protest—so Enjolras changed the subject tersely. “It’s only about a half hour until the bigger crowd marches through. Are you planning on speaking to the press? If so, we should run through the talking points.”</p>
<p>Grantaire smiled easily, shaking his head. “Although I know the points fine—I have been at the last six meetings, Apollo—I don’t see a reason to take away the spotlight from you fine beauties. I can be a drinks ferry, though. Let me know when you all start to wither away from dehydration—Julie in the coffee shop a block over owes me a favor.”</p>
<p>“Does she now?” Jehan said, looking exaggeratedly coy.</p>
<p>Grantaire laughed again. “A gentleman’s secret,” he said.</p>
<p>Enjolras looked at his phone. The conversation was irritating him.</p>
<p>It was a few minutes of obsessively checking the protest’s hashtag and attempting to both listen to and ignore the conversation happening right in front of him before any real distraction came. Just a tad ahead of schedule, the crowds began to swell, marchers coming in from behind the plaza and spectators drawn in by the growing numbers. Enjolras frowned out at them all, trying to decipher which groups were where, and what might’ve shifted the schedule.</p>
<p>As the crowd pressed impossibly closer, they heard a scream, then a grunt, and the sound of glass breaking.</p>
<p>Grantaire was off like a shot in the direction of the noises, finding far more ease than the rest of them in squeezing through the newly panicked wall of flesh. Enjolras’s heart was already in his throat, but when he lost sight of Grantaire, his breath caught for a moment before he dove into the mess himself.</p>
<p>He found more than one person prone, more likely from the crowd’s sudden stampede than any attack. He helped them to their feet before he was buffeted away again. When he spotted a statue looming over the street, he burrowed his way towards it and scrambled up to the narrow raised platform, an arm around the statue’s legs.</p>
<p>Chaos reigned, and not just on their street. In the plaza, at the intersections, crowds were massing and heaving with panic. A fire was visible far down the road already, and the storefronts lining the area wouldn’t have long to wait.</p>
<p>When Enjolras spotted neo-Nazi flags scattered here and there, some hefted and some draped along streetlights, he understood. Using the size of the protest against the movement, inciting desperation and fear through coordinated, small attacks all throughout the levels of the march. Enjolras felt immediately ill.</p>
<p>He heard a scream, achingly familiar though he was sure he’d never heard it before. He turned to see a small clump of people unmoving amid the crowd, gathered around something. He’d jumped down from the statue without thinking, jarring his ankle as he did so but disregarding it in favor of pushing through the crowd towards the group, unabashedly using his elbows now.</p>
<p>It took him longer than he’d have liked. The group had already moved on by the time Enjolras stumbled upon Grantaire, curled and bleeding on the ground.</p>
<p>The crowd wasn’t letting up, already pushing at Enjolras, so he wasted no time in hefting Grantaire upright, grateful for the adrenaline lending him strength, and for the fact that Grantaire’s legs still seemed to be doing some work in keeping him upright. Still, he staggered under the weight as he clasped a hand around his waist and plowed forward.</p>
<p>Enjolras only spared a single glance at Grantaire. He looked like death, eyes glazed over and face pallid, blood blooming from a split lip, a bruised cheekbone, and a long, shallow cut along the forehead.</p>
<p>There was no place to rest, no space free of the violence and terror that had subsumed the streets. He nodded to himself as he started to haul Grantaire northeast. His apartment wasn’t that far, though it felt like it was leagues away as he pushed through the crowd and tried to keep Grantaire from being battered further.</p>
<p>Two blocks down, and Enjolras reached a familiar alleyway. He leaned Grantaire against the bricks and tried to get a better look at him.</p>
<p>“How badly hurt are you?” he asked, trying to temper his tone into something gentle.</p>
<p>Grantaire blinked heavily, gaze fixed on the ground. “Fine,” he said, voice choked in a manner that indicated the opposite.</p>
<p>Enjolras leaned to look him in the eye. “I need to know, Grantaire.”</p>
<p>Grantaire coughed once, and relented. “Ribs are bad. Head hurts. That’s all.”</p>
<p>He met his eyes then, and Enjolras felt a surge of something, of fury at the brutes who’d done it, of helplessness at the pain in his expression, of determination that this wouldn’t happen again.</p>
<p>He reached out an arm to help Grantaire again, mindful this time of where he gripped his waist. “I’m going to take you up to my apartment, and we’ll call Joly. He can decide on whether we need the hospital.”</p>
<p>Grantaire only grunted in acknowledgment, though it couldn’t be called agreement.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>--</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Once Enjolras had shouldered open a building’s front door and hauled them both up a flight of stairs, he let Grantaire collapse onto his couch while he went to scavenge first aid supplies.</p>
<p>“Don’t fall asleep,” he called from the bathroom. Grantaire was as mystified as he had been since Enjolras had first hauled him to his feet, but he was momentarily offended. Of course he wouldn’t fall asleep, he wasn’t ten.</p>
<p>The apartment was nice, though much homier than Grantaire would’ve imagined. He hadn’t been over since first year, at which time he’d been excessively drunk. But in the daylight, the sun spilling out over brown stuffed chairs and overcrowded bookshelves spoke of comfort and relaxation, not at all the severe minimalist aesthetic he might have envisioned.</p>
<p>Enjolras came back bearing bandages, ice, and painkillers and sat beside the supplies on the coffee table facing Grantaire.</p>
<p>“Hey,” Enjolras said in a low tone. Grantaire had tracked his movements once he’d entered his frame of vision, much as he always did, though it wasn’t usually in such close quarters. He looked so strange to Grantaire, just as sharp and severe as he always was, but morphed somehow.</p>
<p>He gathered the ice wrapped up in towels and held it to Grantaire’s face, in the same movement pulling out his phone and dialing, presumably, Joly. He made a face as the cold stung his bruised cheek.</p>
<p>“Joly,” Enjolras said, eyes darting to Grantaire and away again. “Yes, I’m fine. I have Grantaire, he’s hurt.” A pause. “Probably a concussion, and his ribs are either bruised or cracked.” A longer pause this time, and this time Grantaire recognized his severe expression for what it was: determination, and undivided attention. “Alright, I’ll do that. Thanks. Good luck.”</p>
<p>He gave Grantaire no warning as he tossed the phone and the icepack aside and lifted Grantaire’s shirt, who’d been too out of it—from proximity, and from his head trauma—to anticipate the movement. He yelped as Enjolras’s hand pressed against his ribs, though it was a gentle movement.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Enjolras said, glancing up before returning his attention to Grantaire’s torso. Grantaire took a moment to register that phrase. “I have to make sure nothing’s broken.”</p>
<p>“The others?” Grantaire choked out. It really did hurt.</p>
<p>“Courf’s shoulder was dislocated, but they were right by a clinic. Bahorel and Feuilly have plenty of bruises, but they’re alright, too. Everybody’s been accounted for, and everyone’s heading for shelter.” His hand moved as he spoke, and if it didn’t send spikes of pain up his torso every time, Grantaire was sure he’d be incomprehensible. </p>
<p>“Nothing seems broken,” Enjolras said, “but—“</p>
<p>“I’m not going to the hospital,” Grantaire cut in. “This isn’t that bad, not compared to what hospitals will be dealing with right now. I’ll go hole up somewhere, this’ll all heal on its own.”</p>
<p>Enjolras frowned. “Fine. Lean forward a little, I’ll do the wrapping.”</p>
<p>Grantaire blinked stupidly. “What?”</p>
<p>Enjolras raised his eyebrows, and this expression Grantaire recognized. He scooted forward.</p>
<p>Taking a seat beside him on the couch, Enjolras unrolled a long roll of gauze, and Grantaire lifted his shirt partially. He was burning with embarrassment and something else, and kept his gaze on the far wall as Enjolras reached around and back, arms brushing up against him constantly as he layered the gauze up to his waist. When he finished tying the knot, Grantaire let his shirt drop like it burned, passing the sudden movement off as a reaction to a twinge of pain in his head.</p>
<p>Enjolras pushed water and a pill into his hand. “Take this.”</p>
<p>Once he’d done so, Enjolras pressed a disinfectant wipe to his lip, and Grantaire hissed and pulled away.</p>
<p>“Let me,” Enjolras said. Grantaire sat still as he cleaned his lip, cheekbone, and forehead, feeling too full.</p>
<p>“Alright,” Enjolras said after a long silence, after bandages had been applied and blood had been scrubbed away. He stood, and to Grantaire’s increasingly muddled mind, he seemed to be gone and back in an instant, now carrying a blanket and a shirt.</p>
<p>“Put this on,” he said, handing over the shirt, “and take a nap.” He laid the blanket beside him.</p>
<p>“I don’t want to take up your couch—“</p>
<p>“Sleep for a while, Grantaire,” Enjolras said, and Grantaire thought that if he held that gentleness in his tone all the time, Grantaire would never be able to argue with him again. He nodded.</p>
<p>Enjolras left him, presumably to wash off some of the grime from his own person, and Grantaire switched shirts as quickly as he could without jarring his ribs too badly, gladly discarding his bloody shirt that still had boot prints on it. He pulled the blanket over himself too, tentatively. And Enjolras’s couch really was comfortable.</p>
<p>He slid into sleep easily, despite the pounding in his head and in his heart.</p>
<p>Upon waking, the sunlight was gone from the room completely. The only light came from the kitchen, where there was a low clattering and Enjolras’s muted voice. He sat up suddenly, then took a moment to swear silently at the sharp spike of pain in his torso. He hadn’t meant to stay nearly this long.</p>
<p>He stood haltingly, moving slowly as his head readjusted to movement. The bruises that had gone unnoticed earlier were making themselves known now, too. He shuffled towards the kitchen.</p>
<p>Enjolras spotted him immediately, eyebrows going up. He dropped the spoon he’d been holding and walked towards him. “Are you alright? What are you doing up?” His hand reached up to turn Grantaire’s face slightly toward the light, and Grantaire momentarily lost his words.</p>
<p>“Sorry for sleeping so long. Is it—“</p>
<p>“Don’t be stupid,” Enjolras objected, though it wasn’t unkind. He turned back to the stove. “I have soup, go back to the couch and I’ll bring it.”</p>
<p>Mystified once more, he nodded jerkily and returned to the nest he’d made. Enjolras followed with two bowls of soup—from a can, of course, as Enjolras was no cook.</p>
<p>They ate in a silence that was surprisingly comfortable. It didn’t take long for either of them to finish, and for a suspended moment, they were sitting side by side, still, in near-darkness.</p>
<p>Enjolras turned to him on the couch, pulling a leg up. “What happened?”</p>
<p>Grantaire looked over. “I think you’d know better than I would, haven’t you been talking with the others?”</p>
<p>“No, I meant—but you’re wrong, you’d know better. You predicted it—hardly anyone’s been arrested, only those who got caught looting. It was all violence, in the end. Pointless.”</p>
<p>His tone was quietly defeated, his face cast half in shadow and devoid of all the usual fire. It struck Grantaire to the core, and he was reaching to grip Enjolras’s arm before he could second-guess himself.</p>
<p>“It wasn’t pointless. The media’ll cover it more than they would have, even internationally. The message’ll get out, and the people that were there will stay fired up. And we’ve learned something, now. Everybody has.”</p>
<p>Enjolras’s face twisted briefly into something that bordered on smile and grimace. “Maybe.” He sighed. “But what happened to you?”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Grantaire said, feeling immediately self-conscious. He took his hand back, under the guise of rubbing his eyes. Then he winced—the bruising was sensitive. He needed to get better at remembering his injuries. “The person that we heard shout first had been stabbed—just in the shoulder, but it was lucky she had friends to get her away. Some of the bystanders were already fighting back—that’s what the bottle breaking was. I helped where I could, but then I got cornered, me and this kid against six skinheads. I fought best I could while he ran, but, uh,” he chucked grimly. “Didn’t go well.”</p>
<p>“And you didn’t even want to come,” Enjolras said quietly, shaking his head. Grantaire’s brow furrowed, about to ask what he meant, when Enjolras’s phone buzzed insistently.</p>
<p>“Hello?” he answered. Grantaire turned his gaze back to the table in front of him, tuning out the conversation. His head was hurting again, and he wondered if both his eyes were black.</p>
<p>Enjolras hung up. “There’s a demonstration in the plaza—no marching or chants, just speeches, while everybody sits. I’m going.”</p>
<p>Grantaire swiveled his head sharply to look at him. “What? After today?” He’d said the thing about learning more or less as placation, but he had genuinely expected Enjolras to agree with it.</p>
<p>Enjolras frowned. “Of course. It’s happening because of today, it’s to try and set things back on track.”</p>
<p>“What’s to keep it from getting farther off track?” Grantaire asked incredulously. “What’s to stop some neo-Nazis showing up with bats, or even a gun?”</p>
<p>He shook his head. “It won’t be like today, everyone will be seated and we’ll have watchers along the edges.”</p>
<p>Grantaire blinked, speechless.</p>
<p>Enjolras rose, retrieving his red jacket and lacing up his boots. “Take some more medicine and go to sleep, it’ll be done by the time you wake up.”</p>
<p>“You can’t go!” Grantaire burst out.</p>
<p>Enjolras looked at him, and this expression was closer to the one Grantaire was used to. “I’m going to do what I can. I won’t sit around.” He grabbed his keys and left, leaving Grantaire alone in a dim apartment.</p>
<p>He sat there for a long moment, half in disbelief and half in something close to heartbreak. He started to chew his lip, then cursed again, loudly, when he remembered the cut. He knew Enjolras thought he was a coward; he didn’t know why he should be so stung by the feeling now.</p>
<p>He stood, shoving on his own shoes before turning off the kitchen light. In something close to petulance, he ignored the medicine on the coffee table as he headed for the door, letting it lock behind him.</p>
<p>His phone was badly cracked, and long dead, and his wallet had fallen out of his pocket somewhere between running into the crowd and falling asleep on Enjolras’s couch. He directed his footsteps home—then remembered a few of his roommates, and their distinctly conservative viewpoints, and turned around, heading for the Musain. Nobody would be there, not with this secondary, idiotic demonstration going on.</p>
<p>It was cool out, and his ribs seemed to ache more in the cold. Or maybe it was just his movement—he was reasonably sure walking miles with a rib injury or two wasn’t recommended. But he wouldn’t stay at Enjolras’s, wouldn’t wake up to a disappointed gaze that highlighted cowardice with every raise of the eyebrow.</p>
<p>He squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, trying to press his own god damn emotions out of him. This was awful.</p>
<p>He reached the Musain, ordered a drink—discounted, thanks to a sympathetic bartender—and retreated up the stairs to his attic room, where moonlight filtered in to highlight the dust-covered surfaces.</p>
<p>He didn’t turn on the light, just sat on the couch nursing his beer, and his ribs, until he dozed off again.</p>
<p>He jerked awake—producing a cloud of dust—to the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He flinched, then noticed the footsteps were light, and very familiar.</p>
<p>“’Ponine,” he said, as she appeared in the doorway.</p>
<p>She smiled sadly as she came to join him on the couch. “You look terrible,” she said.</p>
<p>“Aye, and let’s keep the lights off so you don’t upgrade that to wretched.”</p>
<p>“How bad is it?”</p>
<p>Grantaire grunted, knowing she meant more than just his injuries.</p>
<p>“Alright,” she said, then leaned down to rummage in her bag. “I brought supplies.”</p>
<p>They shared hot chocolate from a thermos, mixed with just a touch of whiskey, while Eponine chattered about inane, distracting things. She produced a sketchbook, too, and they played a sketching game, adding features to the page in turn, until he was well and truly tired.</p>
<p>“Call me tomorrow,” Eponine said, plugging in his battered phone. “I’ll bring a change of clothes for you when I come back.” She ruffled his hair and left, and he did his best to take advantage of the temporary feeling of comfort and settled down properly to sleep.</p>
<p>The morning wasn’t kind to him. The abandoned couch in an attic wasn’t half as comfortable as a plush brown couch in a warm apartment, so he woke with an ache in his shoulders and neck, plus the ever-present pounding in his head and the sharp twists of pain in his torso. He looked bleakly at his canvases for a long moment, long enough that the light turned from pale morning gray to a warm yellow, until he decided that if he wasn’t going to do anything else, he might as well paint.</p>
<p>He didn’t sketch this time, letting frustration well up and express itself in broad, abstract brushstrokes. He melded red and gold, until what he had was something close to a sunset, or a spotlight. The details of the thing distracted him, keeping him occupied even as Eponine arrived and departed with lunch and a set of clothes. God, but she was a good friend.</p>
<p>He stopped when the light started getting worse, and he recognized that part of the ache in his torso was from hunger. He devoured the sandwich left for him, then sighed and discarded his shirt—Enjolras’s shirt, he tried hard not to think—and went to work on the wrapping.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>--</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The demonstration had gone spectacularly, and Enjolras had been looking forward discussing it—even arguing about it—with Grantaire. Except he’d gone, sometime in the night, from the apartment. When it’d occurred to Enjolras that he would’ve walked home, he’d tried to push away the immediate, deep unease that’d caused. Though he’d thought about calling Grantaire—or even Eponine, or Bahorel—he hadn’t wanted to pry. Enjolras had only slept a few hours before waking, restless, and heading out.</p>
<p>The Musain would help. The others would get there soon enough—it was only a few hours until evening—and they could all discuss together. And however badly Grantaire was feeling, he didn’t miss a night drinking with friends.</p>
<p>He set up in the back corner, hunched over his laptop while he tried his best to figure out every way he could undo the damage from yesterday. He wasn’t normally one for guilt—make amends and move on, adjust behavior for the future. But he thought of Grantaire’s face, deeply bruised and bloodied, and knew it was his fault. A hundred others had been hurt, too, but Enjolras had been personally responsible for Grantaire’s presence, he’d practically goaded him into coming. The guilt and regret he felt for Grantaire matched the deep, wounded disappointment he had that the movement had stumbled so violently. And if he couldn’t fix his feelings around Grantaire, he’d do his best to keep fixing the movement.</p>
<p>When he heard a thud from upstairs, he froze. He’d forgotten about Grantaire’s painting den in the attic. Abandoning his things, he strode to the door nestled along the back wall and nearly leapt up the stairs.</p>
<p>Grantaire was there, facing away from him and hunched over the bandaging along his ribs. Behind him was a painting, breathtaking in its vibrancy and energy. When he turned, the red paint left on his face resembled the blood that had been there 24 hours earlier.</p>
<p>“What are you doing,” Enjolras muttered, moving forward to adjust the bandages himself.</p>
<p>Grantaire held out a hand. “You don’t need to.” Enjolras noticed for the first time that he looked decidedly unhappy to see him, and was surprised to realize that it wasn’t at all Grantaire’s usual expression.</p>
<p>“I’m here, I might as well help.”</p>
<p>“You don’t have to hover, I’m not your responsibility anymore,” Grantaire said, turning slightly away again.</p>
<p>“What does that mean?” Enjolras didn’t move forward any farther, but he wasn’t retreating either.</p>
<p>“I know you were there when I got hurt, but I can recover on my own. I’m not anyone’s burden.”</p>
<p>“Don’t be daft. You aren’t a burden.”</p>
<p>Grantaire didn’t respond, though his hands flexed.</p>
<p>“Is this about me going to the demonstration? I’m sorry I left so suddenly, but it was important to set things right.”</p>
<p>“That’s good,” Grantaire said. He still wasn’t looking at him.</p>
<p>Enjolras took a breath and made a decision. Striding forward, he maneuvered so that he was in Grantaire’s line of sight, despite having to avoid the stacks of canvas and boxes behind him.</p>
<p>“Tell me,” he said plainly. “Tell me what this is.”</p>
<p>Grantaire looked lost, defeated, and incredulous, and Enjolras still didn’t understand. He seemed compelled to answer, though. “I know you don’t like me. Hanging around out of pity is worse for everyone.”</p>
<p>“I don’t like you?” Enjolras repeated incredulously.</p>
<p>Grantaire rolled his eyes. “It’s hard to be a coward around you.”</p>
<p>Enjolras wanted to shake him, but he was all-too cognizant of his injuries—it was all too visible, especially without a shirt to hide the blooming purple bruises. “You’re not a coward—anyone who saw you dive into the crowd yesterday would say the same. You were the first one out in it, and you fought to the last.”</p>
<p>“You don’t like that I resisted going to the protest, and to the demonstration.”</p>
<p>“Caution!” Enjolras exclaimed. “The first one you were right about, the second one you were reasonably worried for. None of that was cowardice—did you really think I thought so?”</p>
<p>Grantaire let out a huff of air. “I don’t know what you think.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know what you think, either,” Enjolras said. “We could tell each other.”</p>
<p>Grantaire gave him a long look, something so resigned in it that Enjolras stepped forward in determination, now fully in his space.</p>
<p>“Grantaire,” he started, and stopped. He looked down, circling one hand around Grantaire’s wrist. “I’ve found that you’re very important to me.”</p>
<p>“The painting is about you,” Grantaire blurted, and Enjolras looked up, then over. He smiled.</p>
<p>“It’s wonderful,” he said, and leaned in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, the side unmarked by violence.</p>
<p>Grantaire seemed to have no such compunctions about caution, and after a brief, frozen moment, moved to kiss him fully, hand fisting in his shirt.</p>
<p>Enjolras disengaged gently, putting a hand to Grantaire’s chest. His bare chest. “Hold on,” he said, and huffed a laugh. “Hold on, you’re still injured.”</p>
<p>Grantaire, who’d started leaning against Enjolras’s shoulder, shook his head. “Who cares.”</p>
<p>“I do,” he said, and walked them both backwards toward the couch. “Can I re-wrap your ribs?”</p>
<p>Grantaire looked up from where he’d sat down heavily, and nodded. He looked transformed—utterly trusting. Enjolras felt an iron determination to not let that go unanswered.</p>
<p>He was slower wrapping the bandages this time, distracted by Grantaire’s wide smile, and then by the trickle of blood that ran down his chin from his newly split lip. “I won’t kiss you again until that’s healed, so you’d better stop smiling,” Enjolras said, attempting severity but knowing it was betrayed by his own smile.</p>
<p>“You’ll have to be quick,” Grantaire said, and before Enjolras could register what he meant, he darted in to kiss him.</p>
<p>Enjolras laughed, filled with such a buzzing joy he couldn’t think of anything else. As unexpected as it all felt, there was something in the unfolding of it that seemed inevitable.</p>
<p>He fetched ice—and his abandoned belongings—from downstairs, and he held the makeshift icepack to Grantaire’s lip as they crowded together on the couch. Though they’d started side by side, Enjolras had ended up, somehow, partway in Grantaire’s lap. He wasn’t objecting, and he certainly wasn’t moving, though he was careful with every movement not to jar his side.</p>
<p>They talked—really talked, not just argued—for long enough that the others would have started to amass downstairs for the unofficial meeting. Neither of them noticed, not until Eponine climbed the stairs, made eye contact with both of them, and turned on her heel to march back down.</p>
<p>Enjolras bit down on a smile, and Grantaire didn’t bother.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>my secret? that i've never read the book and i only saw the 2012 movie twice a couple years ago. i had a wikipedia page up for all the names of the friends. sincerest apologies for the dumb mistakes i certainly made. </p>
<p>happy quarantine everybody. we're getting deep into the coping mechanisms now</p></blockquote></div></div>
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